The gathering also allowed economy experts, business community, government and parliament representatives to discuss ways to improve business climate in Albania.

The Head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Albania, Grant van Cleve, underlined that business confidence index has improved.

The Minister of Economy, Culture and Innovation, Blendi Gonxhja underlined that the U.S.- Albania exchanges have significantly increased, with the value of trade exchanges estimated at over 100 million dollars for first time ever.

“This confirms the fact that Albanian economy is going through a good moment with the highest growth rate in the region. Albania is attracting a higher number of foreign investors. However, we are aware of business woes. Although this year’s index showed progress, tackling shortage of labour force, bureaucracies and insufficient infrastructure tops our work agenda,” Gonxhja said.

Business confidence index was estimated at 47.57 out of 100, rising +4.16 points year-on-year.

The top five concerns reported by the respondents for 2023 remained: finding local qualified staff, monopoly and unfair competition, informal economy, government bureaucracy and overall tax level applied.

Despite a slight improvement in 2023, finding local qualified staff has still been reported to be difficult or very difficult by 74.1% of the responding companies.

A similar trend is reported for “Monopoly and Unfair Competition” (+3.03 points), “Informal Economy Level” (+2.43 points) and “Government Bureaucracy” (+2.74 points), which despite the improvement still remain of concern to the majority of respondents.

The “Energy Supply” and “Order and Safety in the Country” resulted to be the areas with the best perception for the respondent companies during 2023. The “Energy Supply” reached the highest score of 72.05, which may serve as an aim for all the other indicators in AmCham Business Index. The “Order and Safety” indicator reached a score of 64.44, notably improving by +7.85 points.

A similar positive perception was reported in 2023 for the relation with the public administration, where the most positive indicator is still the relation with the Customs Authorities with 64.4 points, an improvement by 1.51 points.

The respondents’ perception for the “Performance of the Albanian Economy” in 2023 has significantly improved (+13.99 points), accompanied by an improvement in “Goods and Services Demand” (+3.90 points), “Employment” (+5.01 points) and the “Investments” (+5.15 points). The indicator for “Goods and Services Demand in Exports” declined by -3.29 points for the same period.

For 2024, AmCham members anticipate a positive trend for the performance of the Albanian economy, investment and the business climate.

/r.e/u.sh/